Marketing Like a Billionaire: Inside the Mind of Russell Brunson

Hey guys, Tommy here.

A couple of weeks ago, I was in the studio with Russell Brunson, a digital marketing genius and the founder of ClickFunnels, who also hosts the top business podcast, The Russell Brunson Show.

I posted an abbreviated cut of the interview last week on my other podcast, The Mellow Millionaire with Tommy Mellow.

And guys, if you haven't checked that show out yet, make sure to give it a like and follow.

We've got a lot of great episodes over there that you don't want to miss with guests that aren't featured on the Home Service Expert podcast.

But today, as a special treat for all of my day one home service expert listeners, we're sharing an extended cut of my interview with Russell Brunson just for you guys.

That means over 35 extra minutes of insider tips from one of the most brilliant minds in digital marketing, only on the home service expert.

All right, let's get back to it.

Welcome to the Home Service Expert, where each week Tommy chats with world-class entrepreneurs and experts in various fields like marketing, sales, hiring, and leadership to find out what's really behind their success in business.

Now, your host, the Home Service Millionaire, Tommy Mellow.

Before we get started, I wanted to share two important things with you.

First, I want you to implement what you learned today.

To do that, you'll have to take a lot of notes, but I also want you to fully concentrate on the interview.

So I asked the team to take notes for you.

Just text notes, N-O-T-E-S to 888-526-1299.

That's 888-526-1299.

And you'll receive a link to download the notes from today's episode.

Also, if you haven't got your copy of my newest book, Elevate, please go check it out.

I'll share with you how I attracted and developed a winning team that helped me build a $200 million company in 22 states.

Just go to elevateandwin.com forward slash podcast to get your copy.

Now, let's go back into the interview.

All right, guys, welcome back.

Today is a great day.

It's been a fantastic day.

I got Russell Brunson in the house.

This dude is fantastic.

Like, if you don't know who Russell Brunson is, you don't understand the marketing side of your business.

Marketing is more important than sales.

It's more important than anything.

You've got to get the phones ringing.

You've got to get the clicks.

Russell Brunson is the co-founder and CEO of ClickFunnels, a New York best-selling author, dot-com Secrets, and a bunch more books, Unlock the Secret, The Traffic Secrets.

He's the host of the Russell Brunson show.

He's a business coach, co-founder, $360 million software company that revolutionized how entrepreneurs sell online.

His secrets book trilogy has sold millions of copies and become the playbook for digital marketers.

Russell has built a global empire by mastering the art of the sales funnel.

So, how did you become so fascinated with funnels?

And I know a lot of people that work on funnel hacking and just figuring out how to make the phone ring.

One of my buddies, Josh Snow,

genius guy.

Just, I love hanging out with guys like you because I learned so much.

We're nerds.

Yeah, for me, it was

so

it's funny because I, yeah, the last time I was having a conversation with a young entrepreneur, I was like, I was always a young guy in every room, right?

I was like 20, 21 years old when I got started, but that was 25 years ago.

So 25 years ago, before Facebook, Instagram, before MySpace, like we were trying to figure out how to make money online while I was in college.

And

it was weird because like there was not all these people teaching this.

It was just, it was a different world, right?

And so we just tried a lot of things and some things worked and some things didn't.

And one of my first businesses I had was teaching people how to to make potato guns that was my first thing and that was like where i started experimenting so like i had a dvd teaching people make potato guns and so i set up a landing page we drove traffic to it started making sales and then uh and then that's where it all began and then from there it's like well how do we make this thing make more money what does that look like and then one of my friends uh was one of the first people ever do an upsell and he's like he calls me one day he's like dude he's like i had an upsell and back then it wasn't like one click upsells you had like put your credit card the next page you put a credit card but he's like had multiple offers and he's like one out of three people are buying the next thing thing i'm like what i'm like how like i'm like how should i do that he's like well you're selling the dvd like what's the next thing somebody needs after they buy the potato gun dvd i'm like well they gotta go to home depot and buy the pipes and the glue and all that kind of stuff he's like sell them a kit and i was like all right so i threw up i threw up a page like they buy the dvd next page like for 200 bucks buy a kit and i'll ship you all the stuff and you can make it and sure enough one out of three people bought that and i was like holy crap and then we just started testing little things and little things and so the next decade of my life it was like that's all it was like we would we would test the little thing and it would double how much money made we test this thing 30 increase, test this thing.

And so for 10 years,

it was like a nerd in a science lab.

I could just, we would test things and we made more money.

And I remember I was never a good student.

I never loved school.

But as soon as I was like, I would learn something, I would try it.

And then my income would go up.

I was like,

you know, it was like every day.

In fact, we had a mantra.

It's like, how do you give yourself a raise every day?

So every day we come in, all right, how do we give yourself a raise today?

If we can increase conversions by this, if we can get more people to buy the next thing, it would just

continually increase how much money we made.

And so for 10 years, like that's what I was doing in a whole bunch of my own businesses, other people's businesses.

And then

about that time, I wrote my first book, Dot Com Secrets, which is like, here's what we learned last 10 years.

Like, this is the playbook.

And about the same time as we built ClickFunnels, which made it easy.

But, but that's kind of how I got started and why I love this game.

And I'm still obsessed with it.

I still,

every single day, because in my company, like, I'm the...

the chief funnel builder.

That's all I do.

I still build funnels all day.

We have a whole company with 400 employees that do stuff, but my job is I'm in charge of the funnels, and that's still all I geek out on every day.

I'm obsessed with it.

I get

all your ads.

I use ClickFunnels for several businesses.

It's amazing.

It makes it so easy.

That's the idea is the ease.

Like I did my first sales letter.

I don't know what it was, Frank Kern, Perry Belcher, Ryan Dice.

And I told those guys, man, I want to be like you.

I want to be on stages.

And they're like, well, how's your business doing?

I'm like, we're doing like 30 million a year.

They're like in garage stores.

And this was 10 years ago.

It was in Vegas.

And they're like, dude, do not want stages.

We got to come up with the next gimmick gimmick all the time.

And he's like, we're doing ties now.

I think they were doing like, like they were selling ties or suits and they were doing, and they're like, you remember that?

I don't know.

I don't know if I remember the suits and the cufflinks.

The cufflinks, yeah.

And I'm like, they're like, dude, it's, it's a, it's, it's,

they're like, do you know the founders of Home Depot?

I'm like, no.

He's like, exactly.

He's like, most of the people right under the radar, and I did, I wanted the fame, though.

I wanted people to know me, but I wanted to know me like Damon John.

Yeah.

Like, we've hung out a bunch of times.

He's like, people know me and like me because I build their businesses.

They don't ask me to sing a song or tell my favorite movie I produced.

What is it like for you?

Cause

you're the guy.

Like you're the ClickFunnel guy.

Like you, how do you feel?

Is it a good feeling of like a little bit of fame?

Is it weird?

What is the feeling you get?

It's definitely weird, especially I'm very introverted by nature.

And so it's, it's always uncomfortable.

You know what I mean?

And the weirdest thing is like I didn't, for me, I never started out for the fame.

Like I was starting out because I was trying to figure out how to make money.

Cause it's, you know, I was a, I was a student athlete.

I was wrestling.

I'd just gotten married.

My wife was making 9, 15 hours.

I was just trying to figure out how to make money so I didn't have to quit wrestling.

And that was my only good motivation.

I remember having this, I thought, like, if I can make $1,000 a month, like, that would change, like, that would be it.

Like, that was my, that was my, in my head at the time, like the peak goal, you know?

And then it was weird because it's like.

the nature of what we started doing.

Like, I was doing the funnels behind the scenes.

It was fun.

But then, like, people started asking me and then I would share stuff.

And then that's when guys like that are like, hey, come speak to our event.

Tell people what you're doing.

I'm I'm like, ah, it was so uncomfortable for me.

But then

what was like, what was so rewarding is like, I would go to an event and I would awkwardly speak.

And then you'd see, you'd go, you know, you see someone who get excited, understood it.

And I remember, because the first time like you learned something new, that feeling of just like, oh my gosh, this is like everything's new and exciting.

And like, and after a while, it's harder to learn new things.

And then I started sharing things with people and I'd see them get that in their eye, like, oh my gosh, like they'd have the aha, you know, and like, I was like, that feels better than when I had it the first time.

And then I got addicted to that feeling.

And then, um, yeah, and so I started doing the stage and speaking.

And then when we launched ClickFunnels is when my whole world shifted, like it blew up.

I mean, I, you know, that company went from zero to $100 million in three years.

And it was just like, you know, we were everywhere.

We were speaking everywhere.

It was just, it was chaos.

And,

and I enjoy it, but it's.

Especially like for my, you know, my wife's here in town, but she's at home.

She's, she's very, even more introverted than me.

And like for her and for our family, it's like, it's still kind of weird.

And it's like one of those like necessary parts of the business, I think.

But it's not, yeah.

I think for me, I'm over that part of it.

Now it's just more so, like, I just love, I love watching the people we

train, like go and do cool stuff.

Like, that's more rewarding for me at this point, you know?

No, 100%.

And I, I love it too when the light bulb turns on.

I did yesterday, I just did a virtual event.

There was 150 people.

Then I did another one.

There was 500 people.

And the questions were, I could, like, you couldn't keep up.

And I'm like, I get very excited just I'm like, this one little thing when somebody walks up to you and says, dude, I was on the verge of divorce.

I stopped going to church.

I was drinking my life away.

And then I listened to one podcast or did this one thing.

Changed my life.

And dude, our relationship's never been better.

And that to me is like why I keep doing it because it's hard to be on the road.

And it's hard.

It's a stress.

I don't have kids yet.

I'm engaged.

I've never been married.

And my relationship's been with the businesses.

But

there's a lot.

I want to dig in.

I got so many questions.

When is enough enough?

You know, for you, you're changing lives.

That's obviously important.

I asked you earlier that you're not necessarily building to sell this business.

What is the goal?

I asked Gary Vanderchuk the same question.

He goes, dude, I'm having fun.

He's like, I just want to see how far I could go.

The goalpost always moves.

So what about you?

Yeah, we had an offer four years ago.

We could have sold.

And that was like, that was the time.

That's the the question when's enough enough like what's like what's the reason why are we doing this and it was tough i remember tony robbins actually told me he's like so if you were to if you were to sell it what would you do next and i was like i would try to build what we have like you know i mean like i love what we're doing i love our community i love our

like the thing we built is is like the thing i've been obsessed with for 20 years like we built and so it's like That was like for me it came down to like I don't have something I like more than this I would rather do so if I sell it then it's gone Then what I do the rest of my chasing I've I've seen so many people who have sold a business, they cash out, and then they're miserable after that because they're like, Gina Wickman.

You know what I mean?

Yeah.

So for me, that was, and we turned, we turned down an offer that

was insane in hindsight.

Like both, my partner and I both, we both would have walked away with $120 million in our pockets on top of still having equity and all of that kind of stuff.

And

so that's the question, when's enough enough?

And I think,

I don't know, for me, it's...

It's like, this isn't, I didn't get in business to be able to cash out.

Like, I came to serve and this is the best vehicle I can serve people in.

You know what I mean?

And unless I could figure out or build a different or better vehicle, like until I have that or know what that even is, like, there would be no point.

But yeah, I mean, I'm sure you're saying to me, like, we're not the kind of guys that are going to retire someday.

No, I'm 42.

A lot of people are like, we're going to sell out and we're going to retire.

It's like, and then what?

And it's like, I'm going to build the next thing and then the next thing.

So it's like, I love the thing we built.

Like, why would I

until I figure out something to be cooler?

But until then, like, I love this.

This game is so much fun.

I want to challenge you.

This is what I love about Dan Martel

is he's very good.

Cause I was like, I had an exit.

I sold

40 or 51% of the company.

And Dan asked me, he's like, how much do you drive?

And I'm like, I did the math 12 hours a week.

He goes, you're going to hire a driver.

And I'm like, dude, I'm a humble guy, dude.

I don't want to show up to work with a driver.

And he's like, no, you're also going to hire a chef.

He goes, because I know you're eating Uber Eats.

We've talked about that.

And he's like, it's selfish not to do that.

And so what I ask people is like, is your mom and dad still alive?

How old are your kids?

Do you have brothers and sisters?

How important is the people that work for you?

Because you're making all these draws out of the business, living the cash flow, you're living good.

And so I gave away $100 million on the first deal to 25 people.

This next deal is going to be 200 people.

And I'm still in control.

I am the business.

You're the business.

So I strategically look at it and I go, who, if they were invested in me, could open doors?

Because I'm a networker.

You're a a networker.

I mean, you talked about Tony Robbins, these guys that you hang out with, they open a lot of doors.

So the question is for me, is the relationship of an investor, it could be a minority play, would that exponentially grow the business?

And I could, my mom's living her best life.

Me and my dad are going on a golf trip next week.

And it's not like we couldn't do that.

I had $10 million in the bank and then it ended up being a couple hundred million.

And

I was like, man, now I could, like my nieces or my niece and nephews have a trust.

And obviously I don't don't want them to grow up with one.

Like they're going to, they're going to start door knocking.

Like, I know you're a Mormon guy.

Like, that's the best upbringing ever.

It's like, I'm like, you're going to, I'll give you $5,000 just to start your first door knock.

And so I think it's a vehicle.

And trust me, I'm busy enough.

I don't golf enough.

But I would just say that if it's a strategic partnership that could double the business in a year, wouldn't that be the best thing for everybody?

I don't know.

I'm just, I'm asking you.

Potentially.

And I'm not trying to get you to sell.

You're a best friend, man.

Yeah, no, I think you're amazing.

I want to talk about, you know, I wrestled.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah, I was a wrestler and I grew up wrestling.

I started when I was five.

My dad's best friend growing up was all-state seven years in a row.

Like the dude, not seven years in a row, but he went to college and played high school badass.

His name was Harold King.

Like he was world renowned back then.

And,

you know, I learned that I was very selfish.

I didn't like to play team sports because I was a go-getter and I was like, blame everybody else.

Like, I'd get angry.

If I lost, I'd throw off my head gear.

And I learned to be just my dad taught me to win.

That's all I cared about is winning.

We didn't get a participation trophy.

If I didn't win in soccer or baseball, I mean, we'd have a serious stern meeting.

Then I didn't be a team player.

But wrestling really set me up.

And I really like to hire wrestlers because they take the ownership.

They're just like, and then I like to hire a team player.

So they kind of grow into this team player.

What did wrestling teach you?

Like, because you're obviously super competitive if you wrestle.

Yeah.

Wrestling taught me everything.

I love combat sports and one-on-one sports because of that.

Cause like you're walking out every single day with no one else around you.

Everyone's looking at you and you either win or you lose right in front of everyone, you know?

And it's interesting because I coach a lot of entrepreneurs.

One of the biggest fears most entrepreneurs have is like, they're scared to, especially first-time entrepreneurs, they're scared to try something because they failed and they're a failure.

And so I watch these people who will who will like year after year after year like they read the books they come to events they listen to podcasts they have an idea but they are so scared of like of trying that if they fail they're gonna be a failure and so for me what what wrestling what sports taught me is that like um if i fail i'm not a failure like one of one of my my favorite stories about this my junior year in high school started the year my goal is to be a state champ i want to do this everything right and worked hard all summer long told everybody like my very first match of the season i pulled the dude who took second place in state the year before And I was like, okay, this is going to be proof that I am good enough, right?

So first match of the season, I wrestle this guy and he beats me.

And I was just devastated because in my mind, I'm going to be a state champ.

And I just lost first match of the entire season.

You know, my entire team knows I've been killing myself.

And afterwards, like, I thought you're going to be a state champ.

What are you going to do now?

I'm like, ah, you know, and I go to school and everyone's like, you lost?

I thought you were going to be a state champ.

And just embarrassing, humiliating.

And like, again, I was a failure.

And I'm so lucky because my dad,

my dad was awesome.

He filmed the match.

And then I remember going home that night.

And I went to bed just like feeling depressed and sorry for myself and everything.

And my dad watched it over and like all night long.

My dad slept the entire night.

I wake up next morning about to go to school.

And he's like, Russell, come here.

He pulls me over on the carpet.

I'm like annoyed.

Like, dad.

And he's like, okay, this is what you did wrong.

Your hips were wrong.

He just works me on these little things, right?

And so we did it in the morning.

And I was like just annoyed.

And I go to school, kind of depressed.

And then I go to practice.

Practice gets done.

I'll see my dad like running down the stairs afterwards in his workout clothes.

I'm like, oh, dad, he comes over.

All right, let's drill this up.

And then we spend an hour drilling

like the positions I lost in and then that was that first day and the next day practice done my dad comes down the stairs I'm like oh crap and we did that every single day for the entire four-month season my dad would show up we drill it we drill it we drill it and I never was in another tournament with that guy until the state tournament we show up and going in the tournament I was seated first and he was seated second so opposite sides of the bracket and you know we're wrestling wrestling and we get down to both of us make the finals

and again I remember right before like an hour before the finals my dad gets his head geared on come down all right let's go let's go drill again again.

I'm like, dad, like, let's go drill again.

We go out there in this match and, um, and I wrestled this guy who, you know, four months earlier beat me.

And we had the same match.

And this time I beat him.

Win the state title.

It's like, you know, one of the greatest moments of my life.

And I remember driving home in the car that night.

And I had the thought of just like, oh my gosh, like when I lost four months ago, I thought I was a failure.

And I was like, no, I'm not a failure.

Like, we just, we learned like what.

like how to like we learned what I did wrong the bad positions and we came back and we drilled it we fixed it we fine-tune things and then we come back now and then four four months later able to beat them right i think that's what i try to instill my entrepreneurs just like okay when you're creating a business or a funnel whatever like throw it out there and like it's funny even this morning i had a guy who who came in our coaching program he just created his first webinar he did it last night and i tried to warn him ahead of time like hey the first one's gonna fail like don't stress out it's all gonna be cool like don't worry about it and today he messed me like oh like i had 30 people on and you know i went too long and nobody bought and you know and as and you can tell he's got that like like i failed thing yeah and so my first message back was like dude this is amazing i'm like that's like now we know we know like he went too long long.

Story, like, we know exactly what to fix now.

But the problem with most entrepreneurs is they, they don't do the first version because they're so scared of failing.

I think that athletics and sports taught me just like, like, you lose all the time in sports, right?

And it's okay because like you go through that process, you learn it a bunch, and then it's the tweaks and the changes, the iterations that make it things win.

Like our business now, like we roll out a new offer.

And I'm, you know, we roll out a lot of offers and we roll them out really, really fast.

And I'm just like testing the market.

Like, see what happens.

And then sometimes it's like, ah, it's not going to, it's probably not going to go anywhere.

Other times it's like, okay, something's there.

It didn't work the way we're supposed to, but now we know.

And then we'll sit there and we'll tweak and we'll change and we'll tweak and we'll change.

And our goal anytime, we have new offers, like, how do we get to the spot where we can spend a million dollars a month and ads profitably on this offer?

Like that's, that's like a winner for us, right?

And so for us, it's like, okay, we did it.

And it's like, there's numbers and they're tweaking, changing, tweaking, changing until we get to the spot where that's the numbers coming in, you know?

And so I don't know.

That's what athletics taught me.

And I think for those who haven't been athletes, it's like learning that.

Like if you fail, you're not a failure.

Like if you, if you fail, like failure is like the

most data you can possibly get.

And then that's where the game begins.

Like, now I lost first match.

Cool.

Now I know how to, like, now I have all the info I need to be able to beat him in four months now.

Yeah, failure is a good thing.

Fail forward.

I mean, look, I get on stages all the time and I'm like, I'm the largest failure in this room, guaranteed.

But by the time you are trying to like, you know, ready, fire, aim, you ever heard that?

Yeah.

It's by the time you're trying to load the gun, I've already missed the target 18 times.

And now I'm hitting the bullseye every time.

Yeah.

Because I jump right in.

And I jump in and I'm like, and everybody goes, dude, that's not going to work.

I'm like, you're right.

It's not going to work, but we're going to get it to work because it's hard.

I'm like, have you ever been to Mexico or a third world country?

Yeah.

These kids will come up to you with a blanket or whatever and they'll say, senor, you know, please, my family.

And they're five years old.

And you say, no, no, no, no, interested, you know, whatever.

They don't go home to their mom and dad and cry.

They are so good with rejection.

We talked about this in my meeting earlier.

It's like, go for no.

Who cares if they say no?

No, just, I got guys that get excited from a no.

No is like, okay, well, why no?

So you're used to doing it more online.

I'm used to doing it more conversation, having a conversation, smiling and saying, listen, I'm here to earn your business.

One way or another, I want to make your garage door safe, whatever that looks like.

I learned it doing door to door for my mission, for my church.

I spent two years knocking door to door, selling religion.

So

I had a glimpse of that for a little while too.

No, that makes you stronger.

Rejection makes you stronger.

Do you think

there's something in my DNA?

I've got ADHD.

I don't care about failing.

I don't care about embarrassing myself.

I'd stop caring about what other people think.

To a certain extent, I care a lot about my fiancé and my family.

But

do you think some people are born entrepreneurs?

For sure.

I think there's.

Maybe they're upbringing, or what do you think?

I would think maybe upbringing, but also like I've got five kids who all came up with the exact same upbringing.

And I've got one who's entrepreneurial and four that are not at all.

So

I think there's definitely something there.

There's a book I read a while ago called Driven.

I don't know if you've read that book, but it talks about there's like a gene

that people actually have that are more driven.

Yeah.

And

I think somebody can learn to be entrepreneurial, but I definitely think that

some people are born

with that as a tendency and some people aren't,

which I think is also really important.

I mean, you've got a big company, a lot of people.

If I had a whole bunch of me's in the company, it would be a good idea.

If you had five of you, so you'd have five competitors.

That's what I say.

People are like, I wish I had 10 of me.

I'm like, shoot, then I'd have 10 freaking guys to compete with yeah for sure so i think i think definitely people are more entrepreneurial um but i think also it's like if someone's got the tendencies and they've gotten the genes and stuff like that like um

yeah it's just it's like how do you spark that and like fuel that that flame that fire and people who want to have it that don't doesn't mean they can't be successful entrepreneurial entrepreneurial business i have friends who are not entrepreneurial but they run big companies because they realize like i want to do this but i'm not the dude who's gonna be risking and throwing my neck out of line and doing you know all the kind of things that yeah entrepreneurs have to do so they they align themselves and they partner and they become like the number two and things like that in a company.

Yeah, they're

they're so Gina Wickman.

I'm bringing him up for the second time, but

Rocket Fuel, he talks about great integrators.

And we need that.

As an entrepreneur, we need our, we've got visions all the time is like put them in an order and try to hit deadlines and delegate well.

But we need integrators.

Walt Disney.

Would never be enabled been with without his brother.

He would have never been able to.

He didn't know what was in the account or how to get caterpillars out there to build the, he just envisioned it.

He saw what Disney World looked like in Disneyland.

Yeah.

And he needed Roy to help him figure it all out.

I mean, do you have those people in your company?

100%.

Yeah.

One of my first mentors told me, he's like, there's two types of people in this world.

There's starters and there's finishers.

They figure out who you are and surround yourself with the others.

And so I'm, I think I'm one of the greatest starters of all time.

And I've got like 400 finishers.

And it's funny because I just got a new assistant recently and she came in from the outside world and now she's dealing with me as an entrepreneur.

And all the people she's connecting me with are entrepreneurs and

she was like

she's like are all all entrepreneurs like this I'm like oh yeah we're all nightmare like we are so good like so good at the vision and the like smashing through the walls to get things to happen but we're all it's hard to schedule so it's hard to figure things out like our brains are all you know and so if it's not for the other people someone told me it was like it's like we're like kites um uh but there's got to be like the integrator on the ground holding the string to like to make sure that we can like fly otherwise we just like go off and you know like we're that's a really good analogy i was like that that's how i feel sometimes if it wasn't for all the people around me that are holding the strings um i'd be a wreck of your nightmare it's so true man i can't agree more is it's like what i've learned to do is write things down have systems that get really really organized people around me yeah and just the opportunity to delegate it's so i'm so spoiled

that now it's really hard for me to get in and do the work.

Like where you're still going and building the funnels is it's like, now I think about my, who I need to meet.

Like, who do I need to hire?

Who's the best of the best on the planet?

And I don't settle anymore.

I don't fill seats.

Like, I could wear any hat in the company right now.

I'm the CMO.

I partner with five people on my team and I dug in and I'm like, oh my gosh, we're in 25% of the bottom line.

And I'm like, we're going to hit 32 from the things I found.

I called every vendor and I said, one of four things is going to happen.

Number one, you got to hold us accountable with my VPs.

We're going to jump on a call weekly.

And I said, our KPIs must be dialed in or we're going to pull back in these markets and retrain.

We train, retrain, retrain.

Number two, you're going to have some concessions.

We're hitting our KPIs.

You're not.

You're going to do something for us.

Your fees are going to come down, whatever that looks like.

Number three is we're going to start decreasing our spend with you.

Number four is we're going to leave this relationship.

And you don't want that because I'll bring you hundreds and hundreds of clients.

First and foremost, you're going to hold us accountable.

It's mostly on us.

And they were like, dude, like,

what do we do?

And I'm like, it's nothing you did wrong.

I let this go too far.

I'm back in charge of it.

And I said, you are, we're not pointing these fingers.

We're pointing these fingers back at ourselves.

And it's unacceptable what's going on right now.

I'm not happy with my marketing comp.

And if we need to retrain, we need to top grade, we're willing to do what it takes.

And I'm not a pit bull that's trying to talk you down on price and renegotiate.

I want my vendors to make a lot of money.

I believe they need to make a lot of money.

They need to stay healthy.

They need to, you know, innovate.

But this is what needs to happen.

And I'm just giving you guys fair warning that I need you guys holding us accountable.

And dude, I've never seen people work harder this last month.

They want these reports back.

They want everything.

They're like pointing things out for us.

They're recreating the creatives.

And this is, remember, it's a garage door company.

I'm not doing what you're doing.

It's like, I wish I had more e-commerce.

I mean, I look at Josh.

It's insane what you do with.

Yeah.

It's fun because it's, but it's hard.

We got 900 people now.

And this opportunity, and now we're doing a bunch of acquisitions.

There's a lot, but I'm learning so much.

If I didn't do this deal with the PE company, I would have never learned how to raise capital.

I would have never learned how to use debt to grow with way better results.

I would have never learned, like our ARR was 6%.

Now it's a 0.3%

because they were able to point things out that I didn't know.

And the guy that told me to do this, he's like, if you learn what these, he goes, you're really good at home service.

You probably are like a doctorate.

But if you learn what they know, you're going to be invincible because they know things that you'll never understand unless you do this deal.

So that's why for me, it was very compelling because now I sit there in a room and I extract.

I grab a notebook and I fill it up and I go, you got to be kidding me.

You went to the Middle East and you raised how much money?

And what's the return?

What's the IRR on that?

And they're going through all these things and it's hard with deal flows and they look at deals like this and they need to find founders and they need to find really good company.

And I'm just learning so much and it was like eye-opening to me.

So your digital marketing book trilogy has sold more than half a million copies worldwide.

Over to a million now.

It's over a a million.

Yeah, between three books, sold over a million copies.

So, yeah.

And by the way, those that are listening, a book doesn't make you any money.

At least it didn't, my books, but they opened up so many doors.

What's your thought on when you write a book, what's the main reasoning behind it?

Is it like a tripwire or whatever?

Kind of, but for me, it's like

I believe every great movement throughout time started with the book, right?

You look at Christ, there was the Bible.

You look at every, like every, every movement like leads with that.

And so it's like the, it's like giving people the playbook to understand how to play in your world, right?

So like when we launched ClickFunnels, we launched originally, and in my mind, it's like funnel software is the greatest thing in the world.

And nobody understood it.

Like we're selling it.

People are like, I don't understand this.

And then I came out with my first book, Dot Com Secrets.

People read it like, oh, that's what you're telling.

They had like the initial doctrine or the whatever of the movement, right?

They read it and like, okay, I understand like why I need.

a cell phone like i never understood it before and so that's like that's my books are so you're right i don't make money on it but when someone reads it and they understand it then they're indoctrinated in my way of thinking.

They understand what I'm what, you know, the end goal, what they're trying to do, and then they come into our world and they use our software and everything, and they know how to use it.

Like, it gives them all the financial or the information they need to be successful with like the actual product.

So, um, in any of the businesses I launch nowadays, we usually lead initially with the front-end book because it brings people in, indoctrinates them, gets them to understand and believe what you need them to do.

And then from there, you can push them in.

And it's funny, it's funny.

You've watched what Tony Robbins, like the books he's rolled out over the last decade, right?

Like, he wrote, he wrote Money Master the Game.

It was his first book he'd written in 20 years but the goal was he had a big fund that he was trying to raise money for right so writes the book teaching the strategies launches the book and i don't know the numbers it's like i think it's like six or ten billion dollars on the backside of the book got invested in the funds like the book made no money but it got people understand his way of thinking his for his frameworks his ideas and then connected them with the actual side of the business that was supposed to happen right so that's why i look at books it's like the best like way to indoctrinate the right people into your world and then and then from there you can you know plug them into all the stuff that you're you're selling hey guys hope you're loving today's episode.

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All right, back to the episode.

You know, I'm friends with Ben Hardy and Dan Sullivan, and their books are due very, very well.

And that opened the door for Ben.

I mean, I don't know how much you've talked about, Ben, but he's

very reserved as well.

Super high IQ.

I mean, it's hard for me because he talks and I'm like trying to grasp it.

You're so smart.

Yeah.

And I'm like, oh my gosh.

And, but they, that put 10x is better than 2x and you know, who, not how.

I think it blew up strategic coach, right?

I mean, coach has been around for how many, 50 years?

It's been around forever, right?

And then, and these frameworks weren't new either.

Like, Dan had been teaching forever.

And then Ben takes him, turns it into a book, launches it.

And I don't know the, yeah, I don't know the numbers on the backside, but blew up Strategic Coach.

Yeah.

And he, they're insane.

Like,

I had Marcus Sheridan come out and he goes, the title matters so much.

And he explained to me, he's friends with all these authors.

And he's like, one of the best books titles of all time is Tim Ferris's Four Hour Workweek.

Four Hour Workweek or Buy Back Your Time.

It's like these titles.

And I said, my next title, and he shot it down.

I still think I got to do it, but it's

called Pay Them What They're Worth.

But this idea of paying people, people don't are like, man, I got to pay more.

But they don't understand equity incentive programs so the i i love your title obviously i mean you've done very very well what's the most powerful lesson uh that you could remember that your books like what's the one thing that if you said this book this is the one major thing that you're gonna learn oh so my three books are so dot com seekers teaches sales funnels expert seekers teaches how to create a presentation to sell whatever you're selling and traffic secrets is all about getting traffic to your funnels so they're they're all different i think the most important though is the expert seekers book I love because it's not just like how to sell a product.

It's like how do you create an actual movement of people, right?

Like there's so many transactional businesses today.

And when we launched ClickFunnels, I was like, I don't want this to be a transactional business.

Like I want to create a following and people and like people we can serve over and over and over again.

You know what I mean?

And so Expert Secrets was like kind of like we had been, ClickFunnels was four or five years old.

We had built this amazing thing and it was, you know, people were coming, they were tattooing our logos to their arms.

They were showing up to events.

Like, you know, like it was just, it created this really insane movement.

People like, like, how did you, how did you do that?

And I was like, well,

before I created ClickFunnels, like, I was studying books like The True Believer, which is about how to create mass movements.

I was like going to network marketing events to see how in the world are they getting these people, you know, they're, they're, these people that are making zero dollars and they get 10,000 people in the arena and they're crying about the product.

Like I'm, I was studying like, how do, like, how are these businesses, how are like,

I literally, that was the joke.

In fact, the first version of Expert Secrets I talk about, I, um, I called it like, you got to figure out how to build a culture.

And I, it played off that.

The new version i took that out because the publisher didn't like the all the cult references but that's what it was it was like looking at like how do people build cults right and like the whole premise of the book is like and people think expert secrets like oh how to create a course i'm like no that's not if you read it's like it's like every mass movement throughout time had three core things like number one they all had a charismatic leader there was somebody in front of them and what were those people doing and how did they position themselves and what were they were they saying right so that was the first element the second element was like um they were that that attractive character was never talking about a present-based thing they're always talking about a future-based cause.

And then the third thing they all had is

when they made an offer to their people, they were always offering what I call a new opportunity versus what most people do in business is they sell improvement.

They sell like a, like, we have a better mousetrap.

How do you make a better mousetrap?

And

the mass movements never were out how to do something better.

Like if you look at Christ and Christianity, Christ didn't come and say, I'm going to show you guys a better way to do the law of Moses.

He was like, the law of Moses is dead.

This is the new covenant.

This is who I am.

Right.

And so everyone moved.

Steve Jobs didn't say, ah, we figured out a way to get more songs on a CD.

Like, we can hit 100.

He's like, he's like, CDs are dead.

Like, boom, it's the iPod.

Like, it's a new opportunity.

And so, those are the three things that every mass movement had.

And I think when people understand that, then it's like, okay, now you're shifting from a transactional product-based business to like, we're creating, you know, you call it a cult, you're creating a movement, you're creating whatever it is, but that's how you get people to stick with you and buy from you.

And like, and that's how I think you can have the most impact on people when you figure out how to, how to craft and create that.

And so that's genius.

And I love, I love the idea of just studying this stuff.

Like, you could tell you studied the tape.

We always talk about studying the tape, like reflection, which I was afraid to do.

A lot of my life, I'm like, don't look backwards.

But when you learn to reflect a little bit and say, I can be a little bit better at this, get 1% better.

Like the true believer, I'm going to read that.

I haven't read that book.

Oh, it's really good.

You were, you're heavily involved with, is it Dan Kennedy?

Yeah.

Yeah.

He was my first mentor when we bought his company three years ago.

So yeah, that's that's it.

Like no BS.

He's got a lot of no BS.

There's There's like 40 No BS books in here.

Yeah,

I have all your books.

I have all of his books.

I mean, I'll show you my books.

I got one here, one at the house, but it's like readers are leaders.

Yeah.

And taking the time, Jim Quick, I was on a podcast with him recently, blew my mind because I'm like, dude, I must be lazy.

But what I've noticed is it's hard to be everything.

There's 168 hours in a week.

You can spend 50 sleeping, 50 working, 10 working out, still have 60 hours left for family.

If you watch Netflix, whatever.

But I'm like, man, when I find myself reading a ton, I find it it so hard to do the five Fs, which is family, faith, fitness, future self.

I added fun and then finance and then fitness.

So there's six, actually.

So

I don't necessarily want to be well-rounded.

I think there's seasons of life, but how do you maintain?

Because I know you're a strong believer, you're a family man, you're excited about business, you're taking care of your fitness, you're learning all the time.

How do you find yourself handling those?

Yeah.

It's a good question.

And first off, I do agree with with you.

Like it's hard to be well-rounded most of the time is impossible, right?

Everything great in my life came during times of radical imbalance, right?

Like when I was an athlete, I wasn't a 4.0 student.

And, you know, these things, like when I decided I want to be a state champion, I want to be a national champion.

Like I, my, my shift was radically imbalanced.

Like, I was like, I do just enough in school to graduate, but I have all my brainpower, effort, everything's here.

When I met my wife, it was the same thing.

It's like, I wasn't balanced.

Like, okay, I'm going to date her, but I'm also going to go and do school.

It's like, okay, radical imbalance here.

Like, this is important this means something like i'm gonna put the time energy dedication you know when my kids came same is radical we launched click funnels it was radical imbalance for a season and so there's there's that part i think where it's like to create something great there's there's i don't know maybe maybe some people disagree with me but like for me i'm like there takes that time of radical imbalance for you to like put in the and the inertia needs to get off the ground right but then you can snap back to something more balanced and so um

And so like in the balance times, it's like, okay, now like these things, I don't want to lose my marriage.

I don't want to lose that.

Like I want to, I want to have it all.

Like, how do I do all these things?

And so for me, it's just very much, it's like, I had to learn how to become very present in the thing that I'm doing right now.

Right.

And I think what a lot of people is like, they'll be at work, but they're thinking about home or they're at home thinking about where your feet are.

Things like that.

Yeah.

And so for me, it's very much like when I, when I go somewhere and I enter into a situation, I'm leaving everything behind.

So like literally when I get to my house, like I drive to my garage at night,

I come in the door.

Like I stop for a second before the door and I'm just like, okay, like Russell Brunson, I'm leaving him here and Russell's coming in the door.

Like Like it's two different people, right?

I come in and now I'm

a husband.

Yep, I'm a husband.

I'm a father.

This is where I'm at.

And if I do need to

go back to Russell Brunson mode, like I don't just jump on my computer on my laptop at my house because then it gets all mushy and weird, right?

Like I'm leaving and I'm going back to the, like if I need to, because whatever I got to, like, I'm leaving and going back into that environment, that identity.

So I have different environments from different people.

And then I chunk up my time where I have these things, right?

Like, I know that for me to hit faith and spirituality, like, there's no time during the day.

So it's like, I've got to do it in the morning.

So if I want to weave that in, it's like, I got to get up an hour earlier.

And that, that's when that's going to fit in.

Fitness is the same thing, right?

And so for me, it's like, I got the same hours as everybody else has, right?

But it's like, these things are important.

I chunk out the time.

And then my gym is my backyard.

So I walk across, you know, the driveway and I got a wrestling room and gym and everything.

So it's like, when I walk through that doors, it's like, all right, this is, this is the athlete wrestle.

I'm going back in.

And then I'm there 100%.

I think most people just, this is the biggest problem is they don't.

When they're doing something, they're not doing it.

Like we had one of our mentors had had, he wanted me and my team to do a time, a time study he was for.

Yeah.

Kind of annoying.

Like every five minutes, you're like talking about what you're doing.

And for me, it was like, I got done.

I was like, wow, I got a lot done today.

And everyone else in my team is like, yeah, I'm only working like an hour a day.

I'm like, what?

I couldn't fathom.

And they're like, yeah, like between all the stuff, I'm only actually getting an hour.

And for me, it's like, I was the opposite.

Like, I was like, you look at my day.

Like, it is jam-packed.

There's, there's not, there's not time.

I'm just like.

Yeah, there's no breaks.

I mean, the calendar's lit up.

Yeah.

And so I think that's what a lot of people understand is just like, it's, it's like compartmentalizing the environments.

And then when you're in there, like you got to be, and that's how, at least for me, how it gets, how you get lost up done.

No, 100%.

And my lett has talked about he's built a workday into six hours and he's got three workdays to year one.

And as much as I love the guy, I think he's so amazing.

I'm like, you know what?

I don't want to outwork anybody anymore.

I've, I've served my time.

I want to outdelegate.

I want to out delegate and I want to trust people, but I hold them to the highest standard of what I hold myself to.

And I'm like, I'm not being tough on you.

I'm way harder on myself.

Just understand,

everybody that I have interviews way better than I do.

When I'm interviewing you, it's to see if you can deal with a guy like me.

Because I might text you on a Sunday and I might need a meeting.

And it's tough for people because I'm trying to be great at everything, but also.

I think there is seasons that we talked about.

I got three repeat questions, and we'll jump back into some more.

These are what I ask everybody.

So what's one game-changing game-changing piece of advice you wish you knew in your 20s?

This is actually something you mentioned earlier.

It's based on one of Ben Hardy's books, but The Who, Not the How.

For the first decade of my business, like I thought I had to be the guy who did everything.

So I learned all the skill sets.

I learned all the things I needed to be successful.

And I would hire people, but it wasn't the same.

And it wasn't until

one of my now business partners, Todd Dickerson,

he was an employee of mine working on stuff.

And then when we had the idea for ClickFunnels, he was like, I want to do this with you, but I don't want to do it as an employee.

I want to do it as your partner.

And I was like, but I'm the guy.

Like, I do everything.

I'd never had a partner.

Like, no, this is like, and it was,

it was funny because like he lives in Atlanta.

I live in Boise.

He was up in Boise for a week because we were planning the next thing we were going to create, you know, and we figured, we had the idea for ClickFunnels.

We mapped it out.

I'm driving back to the airport.

That's what he tells me.

He's just like, I don't want to do this as your, as an employee.

I want to do it as your partner.

And it was all the, you know, I'm literally dropping off the airport to stay by to to him.

And it's just like, what do I say?

What do I say?

And, and in that moment, I, I, like, literally was the second best decision of my life outside of marrying my wife was like saying yes to him.

And I was like, oh my gosh, like I realized now, I see now a decade later, like what we really create because he, he had ownership, because he was,

you know, all that stuff.

It's like, I wish I would have, I wish I would have understood that faster.

Like you said, like in your business, you have five corporate, whatever that is.

Like, like, looking at businesses now, like that's step number one now for me is like, who are the, who's the dream team we're assembling to be able to do the thing and being okay giving away most you know a lot of what we're doing as opposed to trying to keep and hoard it all myself yeah you know well richard ranson does a great job because me and you had to hire bottom up we we had to take the trash out clean the toilets we were everything i had to do inventory i had to do payroll which i can't stand i used to have to do accounting and accounts receivable and i hated it and

All of a sudden, I figured out, what if you hired top-down?

You got the best of the best.

And they'll build build the company for you, but they got to have a stake in the outcome, too.

Yeah, and if you can't afford them, and that's the thing people are like, well, I can't afford someone.

I'm like,

the key is like, you, if you're someone who's a visionary, you cast the vision and the people will come, you know, like

I have an idea working right now.

Like, I'm in the process of casting a vision.

I'm going to go show a bunch of people and like, I'll get the best people in the world to come part of it because, like, they see the vision, right?

You think you got a track record?

Yeah.

But like, I think the right people are looking, like, I mean, I look at Todd, like, Todd, Todd was making a ton of money on the side with his own online businesses, like just because he's a genius, right?

Like he came and worked for free for me for over a year because like he saw a vision.

He saw, you know, I think that's what if you can cast the vision, you can get the right people, even if you can't afford them at the time.

And there's the EIP equity incentive program, Phantom Stock, that if you've got a plan to exit, it only works if they see the vision to where it's what's in it for them.

And this idea of always thinking, if I were, this is EQ.

This is like saying, what are your dreams?

What do you want?

And sometimes it's not money.

Sometimes it's financial free, financial freedom is money but sometimes it's some of the guys i'm like

that they'll walk into the training center i'll show you next door is they're like i could just tell they're not they don't feel good about themselves you know they're overweight or their teeth need to fix

and if that that's their goal or just time with family it's my job to kind of reverse engineer that for them yeah and get them what they want and not everybody's created the equal but if you really look and say look i'm here to uh

You could have anything you want in life if you just help enough people get what they want.

And that's zig, zig.

It's so true.

What millionaire habit sets you apart from the rest of us?

Obviously, you've got a really good schedule.

You go all in on what you're doing.

I've learned a lot, but is there anything outside of the norm that you think

is just a really good tactic?

I think for me, it's like, it's

obsession in a thing, right?

Like I am not, it's funny.

I always joke with my wife, like, I'm really good at two things, and that's it.

And I think I go really, really deep on, again, funnels.

Like, there's no one on this planet that's gone deeper than me on that.

Like, I know that better than anybody in the world.

And I'm not good at most everything else in my business and other things.

Like, I'm really bad at the other things.

But like,

I think for most people, it's like they're trying to become super good at all the things.

It's just like

when I started hiring people and I started, and, you know, it wasn't me juggling all the things or hiring people.

And I had this really cool spot where I do want to spend my time.

And I was like, well, this.

And everyone's like, well, I thought you were the CEO of your company.

I'm like, like, like yeah but like just because that's like the title like like I want to I want to be building funnels and so we built a company around where it's like I can still be like the thing but like my my day job is in the part that like I'm obsessed with like I wake up every morning I get to think about it and talk about it and figure things out and we're creating new things and like it gives me the energy and I think

it's the obsession so you can focus on the thing that gives you the most energy you know what's your reachability yeah and that's

you know that's so powerful because I walk in people like why do you work so much I'm like I never I never go to work.

Are you kidding me?

I had the best meeting.

I mean, look, I'm doing a podcast now with you.

It's, it's phenomenal.

Like, this isn't work.

I'm curious because I want to talk a little bit about sales funnels, but I'm a home service, home improvement guy.

So I don't know if you could relate to that, but obviously,

you know, there's this idea of building a thought in people's mind to remember who you are and let them get to know you.

The wizard of ads, Roy Williams, talks about this a lot.

He's like,

it needs to be relational.

So I talk a lot about my mom worked three jobs when I was a kid.

You know, let them know who I am.

There's got to be a figure at the top.

But then there's got to be offers.

And the offers,

it's very hard to differentiate yourself when you've got two

Valpat coupons out.

Yeah.

So if you had to think about it more of a home improvement home service, because by the way, we're essential through COVID.

By the way, nobody's telling their kid to be a programmer now because AI is taking that over.

They're like, go into the trades.

Now, this Harvard money that Trump's talking about, he's like, let's put $3 billion into trades, take it from Harvard.

It's a thing.

So I'm just curious.

I don't know if your mind's ever gone into this because it's not what you do day to day.

But if you had to think about, you'd probably want to use more software base because you get way more analytics and attribution from like meta.

So it's a little bit harder, but I've got 6,500 call tracking numbers.

I've got.

tons of different ways to book through schedule links, which I've got perfect attribution.

It's hard to do radio, TV, billboard stuff.

But what would you do if you were to create,

how would you think about offers and like click funnels in a way that it applies to like a conventional business like this?

Yeah, that's really cool.

Do you do Valpaks, all that kind of stuff?

I do Valpak, Clipper, Sororo, Gold, like all of it.

Well, I thought those were, I forgot about those.

And last week, my wife had one and she's going through and she's pulling out all these things.

And I was like, oh, interesting.

Like, I didn't know that was still a media source.

Anyway, it's really fascinating.

So for me, it's always like, again, I come from the Dan Kennedy world, which is, I think, one of my unique things is that I started as an internet marketer.

I joined his world and he's teaching about fax machines and direct mail and like

how to market to the affluent.

Yeah, all these things that I was, I was like, and at first I was like, this guy's crazy.

This doesn't apply to me.

And then later I was like, oh my gosh, like media is just media.

Like, that was the big aha I got from Dan was just like, I kept thinking that the internet was a business.

And it's not as a media source, right?

So you look at that.

It's like, okay, all media and then all media at the right price.

works, right?

So it's like if you can make the numbers work in Valpak or classified out of whatever.

So we test and try.

I love offline as well.

You know what I mean?

But then the goal for me is always like, okay,

my initial marketing messages, you know, one of the frameworks I teach all the time is hook story offer.

I'm throwing out a hook to grab their attention so I can, just long enough, I can like tell them a story.

And the goal of the story is to increase the perceived value of the offer, right?

So on social media, it's easy to make sense.

Like everyone's scrolling, like I'm trying to do something to grab them, to stop the scroll, like hook, and then have a spot to tell them a story long enough that I can increase the perceived value of the thing I'm going to sell.

But the same thing would be true if I was doing Valpaks or if I was doing classified ads or radio or anything.

It's the same thing, like hook, and then the hook, goal of the hook, is to get them long enough I can tell them a story and then make them an offer, right?

And so I would be trying to figure out, how do I take them from these, from legacy media to a spot where I can control the environment, right?

I think about this all the time, like, especially in the internet world, like people have their controlled environment where they control the thing.

Like they're on their phone, they're on the computer, like they have these, these controlled environments where they're in charge.

And for me to have the ability to persuade and influence, I need to move them out of those environments to a thing where I control the environment, right?

Because the environment is like

half of the game.

And so it's like I'm pulling somebody from their computer to a webinar, to a three-day challenge, to a live event, to a like, so I'd be trying to get somebody from that, whatever that is, to a spot where I can talk to them long form, right?

Because Valpak, you got headline, a couple bullet points, and CTA.

How do I pull them from there to a spot where I can go long form with them?

Because the more time someone spends in the C with you, the more likely they are to buy, the more they'll be willing to buy, higher prices they'll pay.

And then if I control the environment, it's way better.

So for example, like we do.

In my world, I have a three-day event we do once a month and it's eight hours a day.

And people are like, I I can't dedicate three days.

And I'm like, you know, so we convince them they do, but then after they sign up, the first thing is like, I, I, like, we drill them.

Like, do not watch this at your house at your computer.

Like, most people are sitting on their computer.

And then there you got Facebook and Skype and Slack and them.

You know, I was like, you need to get Airbnb.

Like, this isn't, this is an event.

You are leaving.

Go get an Airbnb somewhere separate.

So you're moving.

So I'm trying to get them out of the environment they're comfortable.

So this is an environment that I can actually control, right?

So we move them.

I love that.

Now we have a different environment.

Now sales percentage just converges.

Everything shifts because now I can, the reason why we do live events, right?

If I can get somebody to book a hotel in Orlando and bring 5,000 people in the room, my conversion will be 100 more than if they're, you know, 100x more versus them sitting at home on their own computer where they control the environment.

And that's the reason why we're shifting environments so we can control the conversation, the narrative, the social proof, all those kind of things.

And so for me, that's what I'd be thinking about.

It's just like, how do I get people from these legacy media to a spot where I control the environment?

So now I can...

I can tell your story.

You have more long form.

You have all the things you need to be able to persuade and influence.

What have you learned about these things as far as the environment when you bring them in uh i know tony robbins does an amazing job of like literally like you're buying that at the end you're changing your life like i love the guy with the red shoes how he's able to change the the the perspective you know what i'm talking about but like

You know, I know casinos pump oxygen in the air and they do certain things to make you want to stay.

They make it really like you don't know if it's night or day.

But is there anything you found to make real events?

I love the Airbnb idea, but as far as bringing them in, is the seating a certain way?

Is there certain things you, is it round table?

Is it regular?

Like, what, what is the best advice you have about events?

Yes.

We do, we do a big, we've done 10 years or this is our last year, actually, our funnel hockey event.

We get 5,000 people in a room.

And there's a lot of it.

I mean, from like the ambiance, the room, the colors, all that kind of thing.

But I think one of the biggest things that we learned the first couple of years we did events, we were very tactical.

Like, let's just teach tactic because we're marketing nerds.

And so like, it was very much that.

And then I remember, um, I think the second, second or third year, I had a couple of friends who were not marketing people, but they were, they were using click phones, but they were my personal development people and they were my friends.

And so I like, oh, you should come and speak.

And it was crazy because they would come and they would do the personal development things,

which didn't, in my mind, at first, I'm like, this is, yeah, what does that have to do with this all fluffy?

And like, I hate this.

It was crazy that after that event, people started messaging me and they were like, they're like, I came for one thing and I got something else.

I thought I was coming for marketing and I got that, but I left changed.

I was like, oh my gosh, like that's, like, that's, that's the magic sauce, right?

And I remember Frank Kern told me this one time.

He's like, at the time, he had a $400 a month membership site, and he was testing to try to get people to stick longer.

He's like, I tested like 500 things.

He's like, you know what's crazy?

He's like, only one thing actually moved the needle.

I was like, you know, I'm like, what was the thing?

And he's like,

I made module number one, a personal development module.

And he's like, he's like, no one wants to buy personal development.

But like, I kind of forced, I kind of sneak attacked him on it.

And they went through this personal development.

And he's like, and then I shifted their beliefs and then they stuck stuck longer I was like oh my gosh that's the secret and so our third event we did this guy I was building my relationship with Tony Robbins at the time and and I asked him same question I was like I'm doing these events I'm teaching people the exact same thing same framework same everything I was like I can't figure out why like most like the percentage having success most of them aren't and he kind of laughed he's like oh it's because you still think that success is is from the tactics right I'm like yeah we've got the best tactics in the world he's like you know what I'm saying he's like success is like 10% tactics it's 90% psychology he's like what's happening in their head is what gets them from being successful and so he came to the next event.

He did like a Tony Robbins like five hour like, you know, fix their, fix their brains and like get people like fixing the psychology.

And it unlocked people then to actually have success.

And you look at like, you know, in our industry, we have the most success stories of anybody.

We've got 3,000 plus people that have won our two comic club award.

We've got, you know, it's just like the, the numbers are crazy, but it came on the backside of like, okay, we're teaching the tactics that they want that are coming for, but we're.

we're spending time interweaved throughout on the psychology.

And when we started weaving those two things together,

you know, people don't know that's what it's coming for but then that's what they leave like i feel like i'm different like this is not what i what i thought you know what i mean that's my first event i got a great buddy of mine he's doing 150 million in plumbing in ohio and he goes on stage and i love the guy but he's super unpolished he's not a speaker this is his first time he's nervous as hell he threw up in the back and he's got this story about his son holding his son chase up they were living on his his sister's couch and his son would sleep on the couch he'd sleep i kind of get emotional thinking about it But he told this story, and he's not a perfect speaker.

And he held his son up and said, This is not the life we're going to live.

And

I mean, I get teary-eyed thinking about it just because Chase just graduated.

He's going to do a master's degree.

Dad covered the cause, but he doesn't, like, that's the deal with the mom.

They're still good friends.

He says, I'm going to take care of us, but I can't pay you much right now.

They never got married.

It was just a high school.

And

everybody in that room was changed by that story of like, we're going to work no matter what.

We're going to fail.

He went bankrupt twice, failed.

And I'm like, everybody, pull out your phones and look at your Google My Business page.

And like, you know, I'm like teaching.

I'm like, this stuff will work.

I promise you, this is going to change your life.

Get a review on every job with a picture in it.

And I'm going to, it's still stuff I do.

Like, I'm super tactical.

And, uh, because I'm like, man, I listen to somebody like, do you believe in yourself?

And like, you look in the mirror and I'm like,

and so I started doing those things.

and it makes a lot of sense.

Like I just learned something super important because I always invite those people that'll talk about like, like being happy with yourself.

And I tell the story about like, like my cousin called me up and she's got a doctorate in like physiology.

And she goes, you know how happy we are, Tommy, with you, the whole family.

Like you've done so well.

And you're the biggest reader.

Your podcast is amazing.

We all follow you.

We call you for advice.

But she goes, why don't you love yourself?

And I'm like, what are you talking about, Rachel?

And she goes, go in the mirror right now and take off your shirt.

She goes, you're probably drinking too much.

I could tell by your skin.

She goes, are you happy with the way you look?

She's like,

and I'm like, she's like, really look.

And I'm like, I'm busy.

Like, I, dude, I was 28% body fat.

And that's the worst I'd ever got.

And dude, that instant

staff snapped me out of it.

And I look at people and I'm like, you know, there's no excuse.

I'm like, if you're not happy with yourself, if you're content, but we always make these excuses.

And I just, I was done with it.

I'm done with the excuses.

And I just, I love telling stories.

And that's where I wanted to ask you, is the best storytellers, sellers win?

I mean, I remember stories so well if someone's on stage and they tell me a great story.

So I started really talking about stories.

Like I just listened to this the other day.

When you should start out any speech, you should start out with once upon a time.

And can you imagine you're 20 years old?

Think about when you were 20 years old and like you tell this story and you have people, the best comedians in the world, they have you think about the situation.

Like you're at the airport.

How many people ever

fly Southwest?

And all of a sudden you're like, you're in that moment.

Yeah.

And if you could put your, if you could have people put themselves in your shoes and really apply it to their own life.

So with storytelling, how do you even craft that story and message?

Yeah.

So that's like my big three, Dave, and this is what we literally would talk about because we talk about one-to-many selling and or sub, we we call, let's call it subconscious selling, because when you're selling to the masses, especially online, stuff like that, it's different than one-on-one.

One-on-one give the opportunity to like ask them questions, get feedback, resolve their concerns, but you're speaking like one-to-many, you don't have that ability.

So what we do when we're crafting a presentation, if it's a webinar or a challenge or a video set, whatever it is, right?

The question I'm asking myself is like, what's the false belief they have inside their mind?

And the false belief is a subconscious belief, right?

And subconscious speaks in stories.

So it's like they have a story running.

So as soon as you tell them something, a story pops up in their head that's either positive or negative.

that's like controlling whether they're going to listen to what you're saying, if they're going to buy, they're not going to buy, like that story just magically pops up as soon as you start saying something, right?

And so if I know that, it's like, hey, I'm trying to get this person to buy something.

I'm trying to get them to change whatever.

No matter what I say, as soon as I start saying it, their subconscious is going to pop up a story about what they already believe.

If

that subconscious story is...

Negatively, I'm going to lose.

So when I'm building a story, it's not just a story to tell a story.

It's like, okay, what's the story that I have, the reason why I believe this thing?

And if I can tell the story in a more compelling way and I can convince them that my story trumps their story, the subconscious mind will literally take my story and replace their story with it.

And that's what I'm trying to do.

That's like when I'm at an event in front of 5,000 people trying to sell something, that's all I'm doing.

It's like, okay, so I literally map out, here's the false beliefs they have.

If I'm trying to get them to do this or whatever the thing is, what are the false beliefs?

And I'm like, why do I not have that false belief?

And say, oh, because this is what happened to me.

I'm like, okay, that's the story I'm telling.

So I'm telling this story.

And if I do it correctly, it's going to literally take the false belief that they have that's holding them back in life.

It deletes it, replaces it with mine, and now they have a new story.

So a good example, this is like a cheesy example, but I always joke with like network marketers, right?

Like most people have like either positive or very negative experience network marketing, right?

And so

I think about this like if I came up to you or somebody and I'm like, hey, want to join my new network marketing program, instantly there's a story.

Like, oh, like, I'm going to, you know, everyone's got a story.

You sell your friends and family.

Yeah.

And there's your story.

So we got it.

So there's a story.

Now, the question is, like, why do you believe that?

There's one or two reasons why you believe that.

One is either you tried it and you had to sell your friends and family, it sucked, or your friends and family called you and it was really annoying.

So like, that's the story you have.

So if I want to be, if I'm, if I'm a network marketer and I want to convince you, if I, no matter how hard I try to get you, like, no,

you know, that story is there and I'm never going to beat it.

So I have to tell a better story.

So, man, 15 years ago, I joined a network marketing company because someone got me into it.

And I was like, I'm not going to do this.

I don't want to talk to my friends or my family like that.

I'm introverted.

Like, I'm not going to call my friends.

And my friend was like, no, the coolest thing, you can do this on the the internet like all you do you set up a landing page and you say some information about it and then you drive traffic to it and then people who are interested will fill out the form and then you just call the people who literally raised their hand said yes send me more information and I was like so I don't talk to my friends

no you only talk to people who asked you to call them that's it and so I was like all right let's try it out so I set up the form drive some message some emails to it I would drive some traffic to it people fill out the form I don't even want to talk to people so on the next page I'm gonna have a video of me just like pitching it and I have a link down below to sign up I started doing that and in three months I became the number one money owner of the company, never talked to a single human being and I won a Ferrari.

Here's a picture of me a Ferrari.

So I tell that story and all of a sudden you're like, oh wait, you mean I could get the money from that Rerari, not talk to friends?

And all of a sudden that false belief you've had all of a sudden is like trumped.

And I'll say, wait, I could do it Russell's way.

And then all of a sudden I could do that, right?

Now they have a new, they have a new belief, new story.

I love it.

And now I own it.

And so for me, it's like, what are the false beliefs?

What is the story I have that I can tell that replaces their false belief with the true belief that's empowering?

And that's the game.

So this is genius.

Walk me through.

i'm a big whiteboarder like big big big

so the first thing i write down the whiteboard is

do you write the end goal so per yeah but my goal is to sell this and do you reverse it like if you were to just whiteboard with me yeah great question like how would you start this i would start with um okay so what's what's the result we're trying to get somebody right so if they buy my thing this is the result and then second thing is like what are all the other things that people are selling to try to get that result like all the other potential options right so that's the first thing i was looking at and then i'm trying to convince them that my like my the thing that i offer excuse me the map that i have to this result is the so for example like people in my world company because they want to make more money on the internet right so it's like there's a lot of ways to make money on the internet you can sell stuff on ebay you could do you know like whatever and i'm and i'm trying to convince you the funnel is the best way right so like that's my that's my version it's like funnels are the greatest way so my entire presentation has got to be designed in a way to get them to believe at the end of like of all the ways i could try to get that result this is the best one right um if they do that then they're going to give me money like that's it.

So then I break it down to like, there's basically there's three core groups.

There's three core false beliefs that somebody will have when you're making a presentation.

The first false belief is their false belief about, is that vehicle the right vehicle that's going to get them the result?

The second false belief is like, if I believe that's the right vehicle, like what's the internal false belief?

Like, I think that's, I think the funnels are great, but I don't know if I could actually do it.

I'm not technically, like, whatever the internal false beliefs.

And then the third false beliefs.

If someone believes, first off, I do believe that's the right vehicle.

I believe I could do it.

But then their brain's looking for some escape route.

So it's using external false belief, like, but I don't know how to do that.

Or I can't do it because of some external reason, right?

So I always say there's like, there's like the vehicle false belief, the internal false belief, and then the external.

So those are the three categories.

And inside there, I'm like, okay, what are all the false beliefs they have about funnels, right?

If I'm going to be bringing funnels, okay.

So I start thinking through that.

And then I'm listing out what are the stories I have that break these false beliefs.

Okay.

Now, number two, like, if I get them to believe that, what's the internal false beliefs?

They're not technical.

They don't know how to do it.

They don't have time.

Okay.

What are the stories I have that'll, that'll fix that?

And Or list out those three or four stories, and then external, who are they gonna blame?

What's the external,

you know, what are the stories?

And so that's my presentation.

And it's all stories, pretty much.

It's genius.

So, you know, Jeremy Miner always says, by the way, he closes a large percentage of the room, but I think he does very well of getting the right people in the room.

I think Tony Robbins does the same thing.

I think you do the same thing, is the 80-20 role.

And a lot of people are afraid.

One of the things my old COO, really great friend of mine, we're still very close.

He did very well on the first exit.

He's like, dude, you're giving away all of our freaking secrets, man.

He's like, we've worked so hard.

And I go, but nobody's, I'll tell you how to get a six-pack.

Why don't you have a six-pack?

Like, you know how to get a six-pack.

Calorie deficit.

Watch your macros.

Burn more calories than, you know, within six months, you'll have a six-pack.

What are your thoughts about just giving it all away?

But obviously, you charge people to do it for them.

Like it's a done-for-you package.

What's your like thought process around that?

Yeah, I give it all away it's so what what my belief is that people will spend more money for the same information packaged in different ways so like i give all my stuff all my stuff i'll give away for free on my podcast it's awesome if someone wants to buy in a book i have a book format it's 10 bucks for the book like same information packaged different way then if someone wants to come to a live event same info like i'm teaching what's in the book i'm just it's a thousand dollar version right they want to join my coaching program there's a 25 000 version it's facilitated differently than a 50 000 150 and a 250 000 but the thing i'm teaching is the same frameworks i'm teaching at at every single level.

It's just packaged in a different way.

So

if you want to watch it on a podcast, cool.

If you want to read in a book, cool.

You want to come and work with me in my office and we're going doing figuring out, but it's all the same.

Like, yeah, all my stuff you can get for free or you can pay.

And yeah, I'm a big believer in that.

Just people want to consume it different ways and they're willing to invest and they want proximity.

And proximity is, you know, that's what people pay more and more money for.

Well, I go see a trainer and I don't need to.

I used to be a trainer.

Yeah.

And I just like it because I'll get a spotter and I'll get an extra set and I'll do stuff I don't want to do.

Like I know how to train people.

I know how to push myself, but it's still, there's not a workout I could think of that wasn't better with my trainer.

Yeah.

Cause he's like, dude, turn it up.

And he knows how hard, but the best trainers in the world know exactly how hard to push you to where you're not going to stop.

Because if some people just think, I'm going to break this dude.

If Russell walks in, he's not going to be able to walk for two weeks.

That's not how you should be a great coach.

It's like try to break people.

So there's this happy thing.

Everybody needs a different prescription.

All right.

So this is the biggest thing on my mind is

the future.

AI's here.

It's not going anywhere.

It's actually going to start compounding.

I think within two years,

it'll start writing its own code better than anybody.

And it'll help shape the future.

I mean, there's that video out there of if AI was going to take over the world, how would it do it?

It's like we'd put it in your pocket.

We'd write all your songs.

We'd give you all the information and you'd ask for more.

We'd even put chips in you.

Not the mark of the beast and all that, but if you could regulate your blood and it wasn't like,

but what do you think?

I mean,

it's such an omni thing now.

Like people are like, well, you got to be on Pinterest.

Are you on house?

Are you on Insta, TikTok?

Tell me you're on LinkedIn.

Are you still?

And it's like

Reddit's the new big thing.

And it's like, okay, like, now there's AI.

And now there's ChatGPT, Rock, and Gemini, and we can keep going.

But what do you think the next five years look like?

It's exciting.

It's scary.

I think

I'm nervous for like, I mean, you said half an hour ago about programmers.

It's like in two years from now, I'll be say, I want eBay and it'll code eBay.

I want click funnels.

It'll build click funnels.

So if me as a software guy, I'm like, okay, that's scary, right?

I think a lot of jobs, it's like people aren't going to need lawyers or accountants or most those kind of jobs because like I can I can have or realtors or any yeah yeah like all those things start so so it's it's scary for people who like have who aren't used to change and stuff it's exciting for those who are just like oh my gosh this is the change right so for me it's like the the place in my mindset is going like where's the opportunity the opportunity is in creating and building things that have network effect right so for for example like if every single person on the planet like asked Chat GBT to build them eBay, there's going to be 10,000 eBays.

People are still going to go and list their stuff on eBay.

Why?

eBay's got 100 million people data logging in.

EBA has their phone.

It's the network effect.

It's that.

So it's like, knowing that, it's like the thing that's going to be the most valuable in the future is people like us gathering people, the network.

It's communities, it's personality, it's connection.

And the people who figure that out are the ones who are going to win.

The people who don't are the ones who are going to lose because information will become, is, is going to become a commodity.

Like right now,

I can ask you that GBT any topic I want and it builds me a custom course on the fly.

And then I can upload another GPT and it'll read it to me.

It's not great yet, but it's about to be.

Oh, yeah, it's insane.

It's like, like, I can get a custom course saying, so why do people buy information?

Well, they're buying it because

in five years from now, they're buying it because they connect with you as a human.

They like, know, trust you.

And number two, you've got a cool community they want to be around.

Like the network, like that's, and so for everyone, it's like if you're building something right now, realizing the info is going to be less valuable, software is going to be less valuable.

Brand, personality, community, network effect is going to be the most valuable.

So it's like building stuff in that through that lens is where things are going.

Yeah, no, it's interesting.

I really like that perspective.

It's, it's excellent advice, the best I've heard yet.

Give me one book that you didn't write

or two or three that are game changers that are like, dude, this will change your life.

Obviously, the Bible is important.

We all know like the E-Myth Revisited.

He's been in here before.

Oh, yeah.

But like, is there anything that's not like mainstream that you are like game changer?

Man, I love books.

I have about 18,000 books in the last three years, all first editions, manuscripts.

I collect rare books.

Yeah, I know them.

I'm a little bit of a nerd that way.

So Elsie Lincoln Benedict, most people know who she is.

We're actually republishing her book right now, hopefully out of next month or so, but she wrote a book set.

It was a little book.

She lived in the 1920s.

She was speaking in arenas full of women.

She spoke over 3 million women in like a couple year period of time.

But she was filling arenas back in the 20s and she would teach personal development.

And she would teach different courses and she'd sell, she'd sell, she'd speak a baby room, sell an event, small, just like what all of us are doing nowadays.

She was doing it in the 20s.

And she had an event she did called How to Get Anything You Want.

And then she made a book series based on that.

It was these little tiny books.

And I found a rare first edition copy.

It's been out of print for forever.

And so we're bringing it back.

And that's probably the most fascinating, coolest book I've

found of all these books that I read

to buy.

One of the first copies.

I'll send you a copy because if you read it, it'll, it's uh it's insane that she wrote this 1920s.

Like it's anyway, so that's in fact Napoleon Hill in his in thinking.

Napoleon Hill and Del Carnegie, same era, yeah.

Napoleon Hill talks about this.

He's like, there's this woman, she's filling up stadiums.

He's talking about her.

He was like watching this.

He's like, how is she doing this?

Yeah.

And no one's ever heard of her today.

So she, like, that book's insane.

And then my favorite Napoleon Hill book,

he's my favorite author.

Outwitting the Devil is insane.

I'm obsessed with that book.

I actually got the manuscript from that book from the Foundation.

So I've had a chance to read the original pages from his typewriter.

I love it, man.

It's so much fun.

Last thing I always do is we talked about a million things.

I've got so many notes, so many things to implement.

Maybe there's something we didn't talk about.

Maybe there's, oh, well, first and foremost, I got to let people know what's the easiest, best way to get a hold of you and what's coming up that people should get involved in.

Oh, yeah.

I mean, you can follow me socially.

You search Brussels Brunson.

I'm all the places.

But in my YouTube channels, I'm actually, each week I'm bringing in my old rare books.

I've got I spent 1.5 million for this book.

Let me tell you the story.

So if you get into old books and stuff, it's my YouTube channel.

But the best thing we do is I do an event about once a month called Selling Online, where we teach people this, like the mass persuasion.

How do you sell one-to-many?

How do you move people?

And so it's a hundred bucks.

It's a three-day event on sellingonline.com.

It's the cheapest thing we do, and it's probably the best thing we do.

So if someone wants to plug in my world, that's the best place to go because you'll get indoctrinated on how to how to sell.

Not like, you know, like I was at Jerry Meyer yesterday, he's all one-on-one sales.

Like, this is not one-on-one sales, this is one-to-many sales.

How do you craft presentations in a way to persuade masses and get them to buy from you?

And it's, it's really fun.

I love it.

I love that too.

I'll definitely go through it.

The, the trick with me is get it on the schedule, like today.

So it's like, get the, they get the timeline.

People are like, we'll get to that.

And it goes somewhere to die under their pillow.

So what do we talk about?

Anything you want the audience to hear that we didn't talk about?

Final thoughts?

No, I think, I think for most people, it's just

most people in the world are dabbling.

They're not obsessed.

I think, I think a lot of times it's looked down upon like, oh, this guy's obsessed with what, you know, and I, I think if people find the thing they're passionate about and then just like put on blinders and just become obsessed, become the greatest in the world at that thing, you know, that's where, I mean, like what you do, like garage doors.

Like, in infinity years, if someone came to me, like, this is what I'm going to be building.

Like, that makes no sense.

And look what you built.

Like, it's an obsession that's deeper.

And I think if people will be willing to let themselves do that, because I think culture is a stigma about like,

you know, that person's obsessed.

Like, it's like a negative thing.

It's like, no, like, the greatest things happen to people that are obsessed.

Like, pick something you love and just become obsessed.

Like, become the best in the world at.

Like, I tell my kids this time, I don't care what you do, but whatever you do, like, try to be the best at that thing.

And, like, read the book, study it, like, get to the spot where like you understand it deeper than anyone else.

And if you do, like,

you know, it'll change everything.

I mean, the thing that I became obsessed with was 20 years ago, no one knew what a sales funnel was.

Like, it was the dorkiest thing.

But for some reason, like, I just like, this is the thing.

It got me so excited.

And I just kept going down the Rabahon.

Potato guns.

Yeah, 20 years later, it's like we built an industry based on this thing that nobody even knew before.

We built, you know,

ClickFones, we've done over a billion dollars in sales on our platform ourselves.

Our clients have done like, I think, 14, 15 billion in sales on the platform.

It's just like, because I was obsessed with this nerdy thing that no one cared about.

Like, be obsessed and be okay with it and become the best in the world at what you're doing.

You know, last thing I'll say is a good buddy of mine, I've worked with him for a long time.

He's just the greatest human being.

I love the guy, Jodi Underhill.

He's like, I'll tell you.

I haven't seen him forever.

He's like, Russell is a genius.

He's like, when we worked under him,

we didn't know what it was going to become.

Like, he's just persistent.

He's obsessed.

And he had the greatest things to say.

So he's a great human being, and I love them and their family.

Yeah.

So Vanessa, the whole family is amazing.

So I appreciate you being here, brother.

It means a lot to me.

I'm glad you made it out.

Anything I could ever do for you, you let me know.

And hopefully the audience took a ton from this.

I'm going to get this on the Home Service Expert podcast as well.

And I hope you have a great day.

Thanks, man.

And a great week.

Thank you.

All right.

That's a wrap.

Hey there, thanks for tuning into the podcast today.

Before I let you go, I want to let everybody know that Elevate is out and ready to buy.

I can share with you how I attracted a winning team of over 700 employees in over 20 states.

The insights in this book are powerful and can be applied to any business or organization.

It's a real game changer for anyone looking to build and develop a high-performing team like over here at A1 Garage Door Service.

So if you want to learn the secrets to help me transfer my team team from stealing the toilet paper to a group of 700-plus employees rowing in the same direction, head over to elevateandwin.com forward slash podcast and grab a copy of the book.

Thanks again for listening, and we'll catch up with you next time on the podcast.